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ADDRESS AT LANCASTER, 



JULY 4, 1876. 



B Y 



JOHN D. WASHBUItN. 



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ADDRESS, 



DELIYERED JULY 4, 1876, 



la:n^castee, Massachusetts, 



BY REQUEST OF THE CITIZENS. 



7 



JOHN Df WASHBURN. 



A POKMEB KESIDENT OF THE TOWN. 



LANCASTER: f r^r-f. . a^Tr ^ L-vwU*^^ 




1876. 
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WOECE8TEE: 
PKESS OF CHAS. HAMILTON. 

1876. 



f1^ 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



At a legal meeting of the Yoters of Lancaster, held 
April 3d, 1876, on motion of the Rev. A. P. Makvin, it 
was voted : — 

"To refer the subject of the delivery and publication of a 
Centennial Address on the 4th of July next, to a Committee of 
five, and that the sum of $150 be appropriated for the same." 

Elected as said Committee : — 

Rev. a. p. Makvin, Rev. G. M. Bartol, 

Chas. T. Fletcher, G. F. Chandler. 

Henry S. Nourse. 

This Committee was subsequently organized by the 
election of Mr. Baktol as Chairman, and of Mr. Nourse 
as Secretary and Treasurer. On motion of Mr. Marvin, 
Col. John D. Washburn was invited to deliver the address. 



EXERCISES. 



The following exercises were held in the Meeting-House 
of the First Parish; beginning precisely at Ten o'clock 
A. M. :— 

ORGAN VOLUNTARY. 



MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE. 
(America.) 

My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet laud of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where ray fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country, thee — 
Land of the noble free — 

Thy name — I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills, 
My heart with rapture thrills 

Like that above. 

Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet freedom's song; 
Let mortal tongues awake ; 
Let all that breathe partake ; 
Let rocks their silence break, — 

The sound prolong. 

Our fathers' God, to thee. 
Author of liberty, 

To thee we sing; 
Long may our land be bright 
With freedom's holy light; 
Protect us by thy might. 

Great God, our King. 



6 

PRAYER, 

By Kkv. Benjamin Whittemore, D. D. 



HYMN, 

By Benjamin B. Whittemore. 

Almight)' God, whose gracious liaud 
Has long sustained our favored laud, 
Tiiy people, now, in hymns of praise 
Their grateful hearts aud voices raise, 
And for thy blessing humbly pray 
To crown the glory of this day. 

Thy sovereign power o'er all the earth 
Attends the nations in their birth — 
Thy wisdom giving each, ariglit. 
Its meed of strength — its needed light, 
All moving by Thy wond'rous plan, 
To serve the final good of man. 

Thy guiding hand our fathers knew, 
Their faith was strong — their courage true. 
With trust in Thee they fearless spoke 
The words that stern oppression broke, 
While Liberty, 'mid storm and strife. 
Led forth a nation into life. 

That nation with resistless tread 
Forth on its mission boldly sped, 
Though freedom's direst foes assailed, 
Its loyal heart has never quailed, 
And, in this proud centennial year. 
It meets the world without a peer. 

Lord, we behold onr Father-land — 
Its borders wide — its beauty grand — 
While every plain and mountain crest 
With freedom's signet seems impress'd. 
And o'er its wide domain we see 
A country blest, a people free. 

And shall not this dear heritage 

Our deep solicitude engage? 

Lord, for our country may we live — 

Help us devoted hearts to give, 

TJiat still her destiny may be 

To bless mankind — to honor Thee. 



READING OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 

By Henry S. Nourse. 



ODE, 

By Mrs. Julia A. Fletcher Carney.* 

One hundred years ago, our sires 

Unfurled the starry banner, 
And lighting Freedom's signal fires 
Even fi'om their own funereal pyres, 

Shouted in glad Hosanna ! 
Old Massachusetts led the way ! 

Her pine tree flag unfurling 
Wherever, — on the battle day, — 
Thickest and darkest o'er the fray, 

The smoke of death was curling. 

The snowy flag beside the blue 

Still said, " Appeal to Heaven ! " 
Dark and yet darker grew its hue, 
As mid the battle smoke it flew 

Till victory was given. 
God of our sires, Thou still art here! 

We still, to Thee appealing. 
Ask that this proud Centennial year 
May leave us nobler, purer, freer 

From foes around us stealing. 

Save, Ave beseech ! Our nation's heart 

A myriad foes doth cherish ! 
Low men in places high have part, 
A selfish greed doth fill each mart. 

Help ! lest our country perish! 
In olden time, against one foe 

Forth w^ent our snowy banner; 
Our newer flag, to-day doth know 
No foeman for its mailed arm's blow, 

Yet still we cry, Hosanna ! 



* Extract from letter of Mrs. Carney; " It will be known to most of the older ones assem- 
bled, that in the early part of our Revolutionary War, our privateers all carried the old flaf; 
of Massachusetts. The field was of white,— in the centre a green pine tree;— the motto, 
'Appeal to Heaven.' The star-spangled banner was not adopted till June 14th, 177G, and 
Btill the Massachusetts State flag was used with It. 

The Hebrew meaning of Hosanna, 'Save, we beseech,' may interest the Sunday School 
children. 

Of course, the present tlag of our dear native State, with its mailed arm ready for a foe, 
yet its motto of peace, is familiar to all." 



ORATION, 

By John D. Washburn. 



PSALM 44, 
( Version of Tate <t Brady.) 

O Lord, our fathers oft have told, 

In our attentive ears. 
Thy wonders in their days performed, 

And in more ancient years. 

'Twas not their courage, nor their sword, 

To them salvation gave ; 
'Twas not their number nor their strength, 

That did their country save : 

But Thy right hand, — Thy powerful arm, — 

Whose succor they implored ; 
Thy providence protected them, 

Who Thy great name adored. 

To Thee the glory we'll ascribe, 

From wliom salvation came; 
In God, our shield, we will rejoice, 

And ever bless Thy name. 



benediction, 
By Eev. a. p. Marvin. 



In further pursuance of their instructions, the Committee 
now publish the Address. 



ADDRESS. 



An^ accomplished and eloquent orator, in a 
commemorative address delivered some years ago 
in a neighboring State, spoke of the early days of 
this country as the " Age of Homespun ; " yet to 
it he attributed, by way of contrast to our own, 
most of the characteristics of a golden age. The 
address was graceful and charming, yet it may be 
doubted whether the pictures of the life of our 
fathers were not too highly colored, ancV whether the 
inferences which would naturally be drawn from 
what was said, are not, relatively, too unfavorable 
to the present day. 

For was the age of homespun and the pillion the 
golden age of America ? Are we degenerate sons 
of nobler sires, as we gather to-day to commem- 
orate and thank Heaven for the lives and labors 
and sacrifices of those who first made their abidinor 
place in this Commonwealth, fugitives from a 
tyranny which sought to fetter the conscience and 

bind the soul in bonds of iron, of those also who, 
2 



10 

in sacrifice and self devotion a hundred years a<^o 
laid the foundations of this Republic, then strong 
only in hope and the possibiHties of the future, now 
imperial among the powers of the earth ? Is not 
the present as truly the golden age, bright with the 
acquisitions of the century just drawn to its close, 
the age of free thought and free men, of intellectual 
activity, of universal education, of religious equality, 
of scientific attainment, of the steamship, the rail- 
way and " the thoughts that shake mankind V " 
Do we not most truly honor the fathers when we 
claim honor for their sons as a worthy race of 
descendants which, on the whole, has illustrated in 
its career the influence of their transmitted quality, 
which, on the whole, has even improved on the 
standard they set up, and which, though not main- 
taining every one of their signal virtues in the 
conspicuous degree they themselves did, has yet, in 
the main, preserved those and combined them with 
other good of which the Fathers dreamed not ? 
Is it wise, even in these days of commemoration, 
to magnify too much their merit in depreciation of 
our own? Honest, conservative, desponding minds 
there are to-day, which dwell persistently and pain- 
fully on the virtues of the Fathers, exclnding all 
contemplation of their errors, and sighing over 
the decline of the virtues to-day, contrasting our 
failures with their attainments, ignoring alike their 



11 

short-coming's and our peculiar and distinctive ex- 
cellence. Sighs for the domestic purity of times 
gone by, sighs for the simplicity of the Fathers, 
sighs for the days when, in our country, political 
corruption was unknown. Shut your eyes and 
listen, and you will hear them breathed somewhere 
even to-day. And so are the Fathers glorified and 
the children shamed, and by the children's shame 
are the Fathers glorified. ]!*^ot so would I exalt the 
.founders of these Colonies and this Kepublic, rather 
show forth their true glory by vindicating the claim 
of their sons to legitimacy and honor. 

Yet our disposition in this regard was theirs also. 
In their day, not a few of them mourned their own 
degeneracy, and deplored the existence among them 
of evils as grave as those over which a portion of 
our community sighs to-day. It is not the char- 
acteristic of the present age above all others, to 
look back to the past for golden days. It is the 
common propensity of every age. Hesiod, early 
poet of Greece, but spoke the voice of his contem- 
poraries when he said that men must look into a 
vague and remote antiquity for the times when purity 
and faith prevailed on the earth. Ovid, among the 
Komans, describes the simplicity and virtues of the 
remote golden age in his musical verse. The loftier 
strains of Yirgil repeat the same refrain, and 
Tibullus echoes the sweet and melancholy tone. 



12 

But a few years later, the successors of these looked 
back to them with longmgs unutterable. They 
became the representatives of the golden age of 
morals, hardly less than of letters, and their days 
seemed as bright and guileless as had to them the 
days of Saturn. Christianity came, lighting up the 
dark places of earth with mild diffusive ray ; 3^et it 
was long before men ceased to look back to the 
Greek philosophy as of a loftier and purer tj'pe: 
nay, some have not wholly ceased to even now. I 
pass over illustrations of similar disposition from the 
writers of English literature, but remark that in the 
time of our revolution many good men mourned 
over the decay of virtue since the early colonial 
days, just as now, in the midst (grant it) of striking 
instances of personal and political unfaithfulness, 
we recur to the days of the Kevolution as our 
golden age. 

To say that this disposition is natural is but 
commonplace. We have its foundation in the 
character and distinctive quality of every succeeding 
past and present. As years elapse individuaUty 
lessens. It is the individual always withering and 
the world always more and more. By consequence, 
the patterns of virtue were more conspicuous in the 
past than now, as were the men of high intellectual 
type and attainment. It must follow, as the average 
of each succeeding age grows higher, that indi- 



13 

vidual eminence, in anything, becomes less pre- 
eminent. With this advancing average, the 
competitions of life become more vigorous, and the 
spirit of inquiry into individual action more bold 
and relentless. Moreover, against some particular 
vicious tendency of the present, we see the cor- 
responding virtue, standing out in the record of the 
past, and dwell upon it with longing. A single 
illustration will convey and point my meaning. 
Thei-e is to-day a tendency to extravagant habits 
of life. We see as we look back that there 
was, as a general proposition, more simplicity a 
hundred years ago. By a false generalization we 
are led to the conclusion, that since a certain degree 
of sim23licity is better than a certain degree of 
luxury, those days were therefore all better and 
these days all worse. Simplicity of manner of life 
is a virtue, therefore those who manifested this 
simplicity in the past were better than those whom 
more complex habits bind in the present. But how 
if that simplicity were mainly the result of narrow 
means and limited opportunity'? Simplicity is not 
the only test of virtue. Was the man Avho rode 
with his wife on a pillion in 1676 because his con- 
tracted means forbade a carriage, by this circum- 
stance a better man than he who drove in his rude 
and cumbrous chaise in 1776, or than he who drives 
in the commodious, even luxurious, carriage of the 



u 

present day ? Does a sound logic compel this 
conclusion from this change of circumstance ? Is 
there a necessary and logical connection between 
discomfort and virtue, or does the latter spring from 
the former as its natural fruit ? Then must we 
sigh for the hair shirt, or the pillar of St. Simeon 
Stylites. Is religious profession necessarily more 
genuine from being austere, uncharitable in its 
judgments and forbidding in its observances, than 
when illustrated by the graces and charities ? Is 
the man who turns the furrow in a secluded corner 
of the earth necessarily and from that circumstance 
a better man than he who tends the loom or guides 
the engine amid the busy hum of cities, coming, in 
his daily walk, into immediate contact with his 
fellow-men ? 

I suggest these queries, challenging this disposi- 
tion to consider simplicity of life and its surround- 
ings, in the early days of our country, a sufficient 
equivalent, and more, for much which makes life 
admirable to-day, — for far-abounding charities, for 
sympathies developed and matured by constant 
and ready intercourse with men, for knowledge 
broadening and deepening its channels, for high 
schools and colleges, for the railway, the power 
loom, the telegraph, for broad and generous views 
by want of which the simple isolated life is usually 
marked. 



15 

^or, while denying that enforced simplicity of life 
is the sum and embodiment of all virtue and excel- 
lence, is it necessary to deny that some return 
towards it might well chasten the spirit of the pres- 
ent day, so abounding in the long results of time, 
which the Fathers dreamed not of. To such return 
this centennial year which, as it were by a special 
Providence, brings with it unexampled commercial 
disaster and distress, may well admonish the genera- 
tion of to-day. How easy such a return may be is 
illustrated by the example of Washington (who 
maintained at times, and especially during his presi- 
dency, a dignity and pomp of state which none of his 
successors in that office have ventured to imitate) . 
A curious instance of his self-renunciation, which in 
the narration must cause a smile at the naivete of the 
commendation, is related by one of his contemporary 
statesmen. " General Washington has set a fine 
example of severe economy. He has banished wine 
from his table, and entertains his friends with rum 
and water. This is much to the honor of his wis- 
dom, his policy and his patriotism. And this 
example must be followed by banishing sugar and 
all imported articles from our families. If necessity 
should reduce us to a simplicity of dress and diet 
becoming republicans, it would be a happy and a 
glorious necessity." A declaration twofold in its 
significance, illustrating the suggestions I have 



16 

made as to the simplicity of revolutionary days, and 
the longings even then entertained for a return to 
plainer manners. 

It is then a false generalization which concludes, 
Avhile lamenting some particular error of the 
present from which the past was in great measure 
free, or all the Avays in which the infirmities 
of human nature work themselves out to-day, 
that we are, on the whole, degenerate sons, 
and this illustrated more frequently than in any 
other way, by the primitive simplicity of man- 
ners among the fathers. I claim, on the other 
hand, joyfully and in veneration of the men who 
laid the foundations of our civil liberties, that, on 
the whole, the present days are the best the world 
has seen; that, on the whole, steady progress has 
been made in all that develops the better part of 
human nature, that our country has grown, not 
only in material resources, but, on the whole, in 
public virtue, that occasional lapses, and brief eras 
of lapses, when conspicuous instances of unfaithful- 
ness in public relations and in private trusts have 
been brought to light, are not to be taken for per- 
manent discouragement, but at most are but the 
intermittent recessions of a rising tide, that repin- 
ing for the absence from the public councils or from 
the seats of judicial learning, of men of as conspicu- 
ous talent as those of former days is unwarrantable, 



17 

since the pre-eminence of individuals is diminished 
by the higher average of those around them. Prob- 
ably no one will seriously claim, on reflection, that 
the aggregate intelligence of any public body, is less 
now than in earlier days. The difiiculty is to make 
leadership recognized, when surrounded by so much 
that approaches it in original quality. 

Let me show how the greatest public evils, like 
those of which we complain to-day, were mourned 
over by one of the purest patriots of the Revolution, 
as existing throughout that period. We hold up the 
unfaithfulness of public officers as in painful con- 
trast to the fidelity of those of the revolutionary era. 
Yet John Adams, in 1776, speaking not in the heat 
of debate, nor goaded to stern utterance by the 
rigor of party necessity, but in the quiet confidence 
of domestic life, said, " We are most unfaithfully 
served in the post-office, as well as many other 
offices, civil and military. Unfaithfulness in public 
stations is deeply criminal. But there is no encour- 
agement to be faithful; neither profit, nor honor, 
nor applause is acquired by faithfulness. But I 
know by what. There is too much corruption 
even in this infant age of our republic. Yirtue is 
not in fashion. Yice is not infamous." Who de- 
spairs of disinterestedness in public and private 
service to-day, and in this regard deplores our 
national degeneracy ? The same illustrious man 



18 

said in the same year : " The spirit of venality, you 
mention, is the most dreadful and alarming enemy 
America has to oppose. It is as rapacious and 
insatiable as the grave. We are in the '/cece 
Romuli, non republica Platonis.'' This predominant 
avarice will ruin America, if she is ever mined. It 
God Almighty does not interfere, by His grace, to 
control this universal idolatry to the mammon of 
corruption, we shall be given up to the chastise- 
ments of His judgments. I am ashamed of the age 
I live in." Does the venality of the present day 
call for sterner rebuke than these words convey V 

And with reference to this very simplicity itself, 
which is sometimes assumed to be so characteristic 
of the beginning of the century just now closed, 
Mr. Adams, commenting on decker's essay on the 
true principles of executive power in States, says, 

" A man who, like myself, has been many more years than Mr, 
Necker ever was in the centre of public affairs, and that in a coun- 
try which has ever boasted of its simplicity, frugality, integrity, 
public spirit, public virtue, disinterestedness, etc., can judge from 
his own experience of the activity of private interest, and perceive 
in what manner the human heart is influenced and soothed by 
hope. Neglect and sacrifice of personal interests ai'e oftener 
boasted than practised. The parade, and pomp, and ostentation, 
and hypocrisy, have been as common in America as in France. 
When I hear these pretensions set up, I am very apt to say to 
myself, 'this man deceives himself, or is attempting to deceive 
me. 

^ot a few good men are grieving to-day over the 
tendency of a portion of our people to indifference to 



19 

the preservation of the national ftiith, as presenting 
a contrast, in the present time, to the sturdy uphold- 
ing of it by the Fathers. Yet, on this point, in his day 
and before the close of the last century, Mr. Adams 
said : " It is a mortifying circumstance that five 
months have been wasted on a question whether 
national faith is binding on a nation, i^othing but 
the ignorance and inexperience of the people can 
excuse them. Really we have not a right sense of 
moral or natural obUgation. "We have no national 
pride, no sense of national honor." 

Sadly some deplore the increase of government 
influence and patronage, and the tendency of those 
in power, at the present day, to press prerogative un- 
duly against the liberties of the people, as well as the 
dangers of intense party spirit in its influence on the 
popular mind and conscience ; and in this regard 
contrast the early days of the repubhc with our 
own. Yet this same philosophic statesman, speak- 
ing, as before, calmly and in familiar correspond- 
ence, said, in language which may find its almost 
exact application to the circumstances of this 
hour, — 

"I have always thought it injudicious to make any attempt 
against the governor, knowing, as I do, the habitual attachment 
to him, as well as the difficulty of uniting the people in another. 
The consideration he gives to a very profligate party is very 
pernicious to the public, but he is stimulated, in part, by the 
opposition to him, and he would not do less out of oflice. The 



20 

constitution of our government is calculated to create, excite and 
support political parties in the States, mixing and crossing 
alternately with parties in the Federal Government. It will be a 
pei-petual confusion of parties. I fear we do not deserve all the 
blessings we have within our reach, and that our country must be 
deformed with divisions, contests, dissensions and civil war, as 
well as others. * * * May God, of His infinite mercy, grant 
that some remedy may be found, before it is too late, in the good 
sense of this people." 

Many persons, well-informed in general, strangely 
forget the plainest truths of history, in their dispo- 
sition to depreciate the present in comparison with 
the past. At the time of our great Civil War, 
nothing was more common than to hear it cited as 
a proof of our decline in the spirit of patriotic self- 
sacrifice, that it was necessary to offer pecuniary 
bounties, in order to induce men to serve in the 
national army. Yet as early as 1776, Congress 
offered twenty dollars and a hundred acres of land 
to every man who would enlist for the war, and in 
1778 five hundred dollars were offered by towns in 
Massachusetts, for recruits for nine months. There 
was no vice in oiu' late army which did not find its 
counterpart, in kind if not in degree, in the patriot 
army of Washington. Then, as later, the sutler 
preyed upon the soldier, and the hoarse voice of 
Hook resounded through the patriot camp, with its 
selfish and discordant cry. The same jealousy 
among military officers in high command which we 
have seen so lately exhibited warred against the 



21 

efficiency of the army, and protracted the exhaustive 

struggle. 

" I am wearied to death," says Mr. Adams, "• with the wrangles 
between military officers, high and low. They quarrel like cats 
and dogs. They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling after 
rank and pay like apes for nuts. I believe there is no one princi- 
ple which predominates in human nature so much, in every stage 
of life, from the cradle to the grave, in males and females, old and 
young, black and white, rich and poor, high and low, as this pas- 
sion for superiority ; but 1 never saw it operate with such keen- 
ness, ferocity and fury, as among military officers. They will go 
terrible lengths in their emulation, their envy and revenge, in 
consequence of it." 

I cite these contemporaneous declarations of the 
highest authority, not in disparagement of the 
Fathers whom we venerate, but as an encourage- 
ment to men of to-day to believe in their times and 
in themselves, to show by one witness among many, 
and by one whom all who listen will admit to be 
entitled to the fullest respect, that the very vices we 
most deplore among ourselves in public life were 
deplored not less deeply by those men who, amid all 
these drawbacks, laid strong and enduring the 
foundations of our government. Even better than 
they knew did the Fathers build. For who of them, 
in the moment of highest prophetic ecstacy, would 
have dared predict for his country the glory and 
success it has achieved among the nations of the 
earth ? If we have not eradicated the vices of 
those earlier days, we have added to them the 
triumphs of the present, triumphs of intellect, of 



22 

personal freedom, of free thought and the advance- 
ment of learning ; and I venture to add, also — in 
view of the severer strain put upon them by the 
fiercer competitions of the day — of public and 
private morals. ISTotwithstanding the recent 
developments, of defalcations, financial dishonesty, 
moral delinquency and crime, it may be fairly 
claimed as a triumph, at least of the negative 
character, that a gigantic civil war has closed and 
left behind no greater track of moral ruin. Of civil 
wars it may well be said, in the language of Burke, 
" They strike deepest of all into the manners of the 
people. They vitiate their politics ; they corrupt 
their morals. They prevent even the natural taste 
for equality and justice. By teaching us to consider 
our fellow-citizens in a hostile light the whole body 
of the nation becomes less dear to us." Unques- 
tionably, the general history of mankind confirms 
these declarations of Mr. Burke, and, compared with 
what might reasonably have been expected to follow 
in pursuance of this rule, our actual experience has 
been exceptional in the lightness of the evils we 
have sufiered. 

A modest scholar, in dwelling upon the disclosures 
of the past few years, has claimed that " it may be 
considered one of those epidemics of crime which 
have frequent parallels in the history of the past, 
and is not a symptom of incurable national decay 



23 

and corruption." With peculiar felicity, he cites a 
similar state of affairs in England in the time of 
William III., and especially in the years 1694-5. 
The characteristics of those times have been 
graphically portrayed by Macaulay's brilliant pen. 
He says : — 

"The peculations and venality by which the official men of that 
period were in the habit of enriching themselves had excited in 
the public mind a feeling such as C(juld not but vent itself, sooner 
or later, in some formidable explosion. But the gains were 
immediate ; the day of retribution was uncertain, and the plun- 
derers of the public were as audacious as ever, when the 
vengeance long threatened and long delayed suddenly overtook 
the proudest and most powerful among them. The whole 
administration was in such a state that it was hardly possible to 
track one offender without discovering ten others." 

Then follows the long catalogue of public crimes 
and illustrious criminals. All, as in our own case, 
the temporary recessions of the rising tide of civil- 
ization — the rule, progress from century to century ; 
the recessions of a few years in each centiuy lost in 
the contemplation of the past. And all this pro- 
gress but the omen and prophecy of what is yet to 
come. We stand on this Centennial Day at the 
opening of a century at the close of which our 
successors may look back upon us, in the comparison 
of our attainments in all that makes human life 
desirable with their own, as barbarians. In the 
providence of God, in the light of Christianity, in 



24 

the light also of Science — her younger sister, infinite 
possibilities of progress are before us. Imagination 
fails to grasp or define the results of an advance for 
anothei' century proportionate in any degree to that 
of this closing one. What truths of nature will not 
science then have revealed ? What arts of life will 
then obtain, inconceivable now ? What shall it 
now be said will then be impossible ? What con- 
ditions are to us more inconceivable than were one 
hundred years ago that power in the expanded drop 
of water to drive man's iron chariot over land and 
sea, or that mysterious agency of the skies which, 
obedient to man's command, gathers with instanta- 
neous grasp the scattered intelligence of the eastern 
and western worlds and lays it on our table fresh 
every morning of the year ? The impossibilities of 
to-day fade away then before the unimaginable 
possibilities of the future. These cannot be defined 
nor foreshadowed, and the boldest visions shrink 
from taking shape or form. 

'' Vast images in glimmering dawn, 
Half shown are broken and withdrawn." 

Their embodiment in attainment through the agency 
of the restless and aspiring soul and mind of men, 
our successors here, rests alone with God. Yet, in his 
Providence, I hold it clear that, bright as is this day of 
our success and glory as a nation, a country, a race, 



25 

these successors of ours, looking back to what we 
were, shall descry an mfancy of hope rather than 
a manhood of attainment ; and, judging us with 
charity, — exaggerating, perhaps, our merit as they 
contemplate some passing or signal demerit of their 
own, — will yet insist that, after all, we were but the 
" ancients of the earth, and in the morning of the 
times." 

I must once more guard against the possible 
suggestion that in what I have said earlier in this 
address, I design to depreciate or undervalue the 
past. N^ot so ! I would but judge it fairly, and do 
justice to the present in the comparison. What I 
mean is, that the present shall not be undervalued by 
reason of its errors, and to that end J remind you 
that our Fathers had to contend with the same evils 
in their day, which pressed upon them to the point 
of discouragement — at times, even, of despair — '■ 
and drove them in their time back to the past for 
brighter and purer examples. It is the danger to 
which the conservative mind is subjected (and its 
judgments are generally to be treated with respect 
because its aspirations are generally for virtue), to 
feel that all the progress of the present is more 
than offset by new and heretofore unexperienced 
evils. Is it not true that most of the conventions 
and conferences of so-called conservative men and 
politicians are marked by expressions of glorifica- 

4 



26 

tion of the past, in disparagement of the present ? 
Do they not generally exclude its short-comings, its 
expression of the vanity of human hopes, the exact 
counterpart it presents to our own trials, from their 
field of vision ? Buoyantly, therefore, and with 
belief in the present, I remind you that our trials of 
faith were theirs also, that our hindrances and dis- 
appointments were theirs also, and beg you to 
believe with me that as they overcame we shall 
overcome also, if we doubt and despair not by the 
way. 

It is appropriate to this Centennial year that its 
celebration of the National birthday should be 
marked by considerations and congratulations local 
in their nature, as well as by those relating to the 
greatness and glory of our country. The reasons 
which led to the colonization of this land, so remote 
from what, in that early day, was known as the 
Christian world, the considerations which, in the 
next century, led to the establishment here of a 
Kepublic, the National struggle, the l^ational 
victory, have been in the past and will be to-day, 
set forth in completeness by orators who, from their 
more distinguished position, address a field large as 
the country. And the President of the Republic, 
reiterating therein the expressed wish of the 
]N^ational Congress, has suggested that the ad- 
dresses delivered to-day in the various towns of the 



27 

land, may be, in some degree at least, based on and 
made to illustrate the local history of those places ; 
so that they may to some extent, by statement or 
reference, constitute a permanent addition to the 
details and materials of the history of the country. 
^o suggestion could be better timed or more truly 
in accord with the spirit of the day. The history of 
our country is, in a degree at least, the sum of the 
histories of its towns and cities. In the usual 
exercises in honor of the anniversary of the 
National Independence, the disposition of orators 
has almost invariably been to dwell upon the 
aggregate glory of the country, rather than upon 
the less conspicuous and, it may be confessed, less 
interesting details of municipal experiences. Yet 
these illustrate the whole subject, and a knowledge 
of them is indispensable to a full comprehension of 
the growth and true grandeur of our institutions. 
Here are the primal springs of empire. From the 
town meetings, in communities like this, emanated 
the influence and declarations which stirred the 
National conscience, strengthened the National heart 
and sustained the National arms in the great 
struggle of the Revolution. And I will show you 
from the original records of this town, that from its 
meeting-house went forth lofty utterances in 
denunciation of the pretensions of the mother 
country, and in determination to obtain redress of 



28 

grievances, years before the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence had rung its notes of Hberty through the 
land. In contemplating then the history of our 
town Ave turn from maturing results to primary 
beginnings, from the comprehensive and general to 
the essential and elementary particular, "won sectari 
rivulos, sed petere fontes.''^ 

Nor should the leading points in the history of a 
town be suffered to remain unfamiliar to its inhabit- 
ants of successive generations. There may be little 
room for originality or claim to the credit of 
research and investigation, yet he renders no unim- 
portant service who, by bringing these points anew 
before the men of to-day, aids in the creation of a 
familiarity which must animate and inspire. Who 
first explored that wilderness w^hich now blossoms 
around us like the rose ? What influence led to 
that exploration, and laid the foundation* of the 
consequences w hich followed ? Where was the first 
house built ? Where was the rude meeting-house, 
whose walls first listened to the voice of public 
prayer in this valley ? Who was the first martyr in 
the great crusade, which ended, though conducted 
long with varying fortunes, in the triumph of 
Christianity over Heathenism, and of Civilization 
over Barbarism here ? In the Providence of God it 
was ordained that the red man should disappear 
from our land, and that land be peopled with a new 



29 

race which should, in the course of time, develop 
all its wondrous possibilities. What were the rela- 
tions of this valley to that aboriginal and fated 
people ? Independence of foreign domination was 
to be won by blood and sacrifice. What part did 
the Revolutionary Fathers of this town bear in that 
heroic and protracted contest ? With what spirit 
did they meet the onset of imperial power, and with 
what endurance bear the exhausting strain of long 
discouragement and deferred hope ? A vast rebel- 
lion against the government of our country was to 
be met and overthrown, and rivers of blood flow, to 
which those of the Revolution were but mountain 
rills. How did the sons of our sires rise to this new 
crisis, and prove from what lineage they sprung ? 

You see that these inquiries bring us at once to 
the contemplation of the springs of N^ational great- 
ness, while the answers which might be truly made 
to-day (for I shall not attempt to answer all), 
inspire us with honorable pride which needs no 
concealment or apology, and kindle anew our 
attachment for our birthplace. A blessing follows. 
For as is eloquently and earnestly observed by 
Southey : — 

" Whatsoever strengthens our local attachments is favorable 
both to individual and national character. Our home — our birth- 
place — our native land ; think for awhile what are the virtues 
which arise out of the feelings connected with these words, and 



30 

if you have any intellectual eyes, you will then perceive the con- 
nection between toj)Ograpliy and patriotism. Show me the man 
who cares no more for one place than another, and I will show 
you in that person one who loves nothing but himself Beware 
of those who are homeless by clioice. You have no hold on a 
human being whose affections are without a tap-root. The laws 
recognize this truth in the privile£;es they confer on freeholders, 
and public opinion acknowledges it also in the confidence which 
it reposes on those who have what is called a stake in the 
community." 

In cordial compliance, then, with the executive 
recommendation, I ask you to contemplate with me 
some of the leading points in the history of our 
town; its original settlement and the character and 
purposes of its founders, its early growth, its con- 
tests with the natives, at first mild and hospitable, 
afterwards hostile and determined on the extermina- 
tion of the white man. Consider, not only here and 
now, but elsewhere should any suggestions here 
made be found a worthy basis of reflection, what 
were the characteristics of its several epochs, from its 
original settlement to its destruction and temporary 
abandonment; from its re-settlement up to, and in- 
cluding, the War of the Revolution; from the close 
of the War of the Revolution up to, and including, 
the War of the Great Rebellion ; three epochs of 
local history, during which I think we shall agree 
that patriotism and public virtue grew, that intelli- 
gence difi'used itself with time, that increasing social 
order marked all the eras of our history ; that, though 



31 

there have been occasional faihires to come up to the 
high standard of the duty of the hour, there never 
has been degeneracy, and that this statement finds 
fullest illustration in the record of honorable resolve 
and action which closes the story of each of the last 
two epochs. 

Most ancient of the sister townships of this 
county, honorable as the gentle mother from whose 
loins of virtue eight daughter municipalities have 
sprung who now arise and call her blessed, digni- 
fied in her age yet wearing it hale and green, 
rejoicing not in the mere elements of material 
growth and prosperity, but rejoicing rather in what 
she has brought into the world, so that instead of 
illustrating the swarming growth of population 
within her borders, she has won the proud title of 
" Mother of Towns," beautiful in the calm repose of 
natural attraction as when her wondrous charm first 
revealed itself to the ardent gaze of the adventurous 
King, who, first of white men, from the neighboring 
summit, like Balboa " silent upon a peak in Da- 
rien " surveyed this lovely valley, our native town 
bids us welcome to her borders to-day, and invites 
us to read anew her simple, yet honorable, annals. 

And first of all, before entering upon even this 
brief historic sketch, must full acknowledgment be 
made of what has been accomplished for the writer 
or speaker of to-day by the faitliful and untiring 



32 

labors of Willard. His exhaustive research has left 
little to be discovered by those whose task it is, non 
jpassibus ceqiiis, to follow him. It was my privilege 
to know him, and in the years of my own pro- 
fessional study which were the later years of his 
life of usefulness and honor, to call him my friend. 
From him I learned to read the lesson of the past, 
and enjoy its contemplation. Unallured by the 
sordid from the intellectual, his delight was in his- 
toric studies and he found in them a full and rich 
reward. He loved this town, the home of his early 
manhood, where he passed happy years of study and 
practice relieved by the pleasures of historic and 
antiquarian research. What he has done to perpet- 
uate its history is itself a part of that history. And 
it is but justice to his memory to make the admis- 
sion that, in my own researches upon this subject, I 
have found little which he has not somewhere 
stated, or to which his memoranda have not given 
a clue. Unworthy the orator who attempts to arro- 
gate to himself the credit of others' labors, or who, 
if obliged from the very necessities of the situation 
to appropriate their results, does not emphatically 
and unreservedly make all acknowledgment, and 
pay his cheerful tribute of gratitude. 

" TJie 2^^^sons mterested in this plantation heing 
most of them ]}oot men, and some of tliem corrupt 
in judgment, and others profane, it went on very 



33 

slowly, so that in two years they had not three 
houses huilt, and he whom they had called to he 
their minister left thern for their delay sP IJarsh 
words, if taken in their literal sense, to fall from the 
lips of the generous and high-souled Winthrop, who 
judged so kindly, and whose life was the embodi- 
ment of almost every Christian and statesmanlike 
grace ; and they were spoken, and not uncharitably, 
of the men who fii'st undertook the foundation of 
this plantation of l^^Tashaway, reaching out from the 
comparative wilderness of Watertown and Cam- 
bridge, to grasp possession of an absolute wilder- 
ness, never trodden before by the foot of white man, 
but which their successors, in another century, 
converted into a garden of bloom and fruit. And 
T quote this declaration of Winthrop in the outset, 
as an earnest of my purpose to deal justly with the 
past in what is to be said of our local history, nor 
accord it an undue glory from its being far. 

But while it is certain that Winthrop would con- 
sciously do no injustice to these men, it is fair to 
claim that his judgment of them might have been 
colored by his own higher social relations, and by a 
degree of impatience at their failures. These were 
not of the highest class of the men who founded 
Massachusetts, l^o names like those of Winthrop 
and Saltonstall and Endicott are found upon the 
early records of this town, and it was reserved for a 



34 

succeeding generation to make even one of them 
ilhistrious. That they were plain men is ob^ ions. 
Their callings were hnrable and obscure. They 
were no doubt "corrupt in judgment" and "profane," 
in the sense that they were not connected with the 
church, and to that sense, I believe, the expressions 
of Winthrop ma}^ be fairly limited. jSTor will I 
claim for them in their settlement of Lancaster any 
of the exalted purposes which led the men of 1620 
or those of 1630, to the remote and barren shore of 
Massachusetts. Thomas King was the first English- 
man, so far as can at this day be discovered, who 
saw the valley of the aSTashaway ; and he saw it, 
judging from subsequent events, rather with the eye 
of the speculator than of the religious or political 
enthusiast. The history of the settlement may be 
concisely set forth. Sholan, the chief of a small 
and peaceful tribe, ruled in this valley, having his 
home between the Waushakum lakes. Unembar- 
rassed by that dignity which in riper civilizations 
becomes a monarch, he was in the habit of making 
trips to Watertown, carrying his rude merchandise 
to a market of consumption or distribution. There 
he met King, who was induced by his representa- 
tions to visit this valley. Imagination may portray 
in glowing language, if it will, his feelings and 
resolves as he gazed upon its beauties. The 
record only is that he, with his associates, purchased 



35 

a lai'g-e tract of land of Sholaii, had a deed of it 
made to himself and them, never came here to 
reside, though he with others built a trucking- 
house, relapsed into the obscurity from which his- 
tory rescues him for the purpose of recognizing 
him as the original founder of this town, and 
disappeared in due season from among men. 

It is obvious that my present purpose only allows 
me to pass in rapid review the men or the events of 
this early day of our municipality. I must remind 
you of the chief points and characters in our local 
history, leaving further illustrations to be set forth 
in notes, should such further illustrations eventually 
be deemed necessary. For the exact and full details 
of any of the epochs, or even its signal events, the 
hour for which I can reasonably ask your attention 
would iiot suffice, and I must dwell more particu- 
larly upon this occasion on the relations of our 
fathers here to the great crisis of the Revolution. 

The first epoch, then, can only briefly be con- 
sidered, in respect of the founding and building up 
of the town as a settlement and a municipality, and 
of its relations with the aboriginal tribes. As King 
is entitled to be remembered as its discoverer, 
Prescott has the higher distinction of being the 
fu'st of the associates to become a permanent settler. 
A plain man too, following the unpretending calling 
of a blacksmith, he had yet strong lines of character 



36 

and a tenacity of purj)ose which no considerations of 
convenience or comfort could shake. His name is 
associated, through one ilhistrious descendant, with 
the highest walks of American litei'ature, and 
through another with the glories of Bunker Hill. 
Silently, with no voice of eloquence to be listened 
to by an earthly eternity of scholars and men of 
letters, called to no share in the great contests for 
personal and political independence, honorably, as 
discharging all his duties here of primitive pioneer, 
faithfully, as swer\dng never from his deliberate and 
chosen purpose, he lived and died in this valley, an 
example for all generations of his successors here, 
of true single-hearted manliness. 

You see I am speaking of plain men, and the 
language of eloquent panegyric or stately eulogium 
has no place here. They were the rude forefathers 
of this hamlet. ]^ot one of them held a position in 
church or state which makes his name familiar to 
later generations, even of those who dAvell within 
the precincts of his valley home. The story of 
their life and effort here is of the simplest. It was 
in 1643 that Sholan gave the deed to King and his 
associates, and the deed was approved by the 
General Court. King, a real estate speculator 
after all, sold out his interest to his asso- 
ciates. They signed mutual covenants with 
each other to begin the plantation within a given 



37 

time. But none of them came save Prescott, and 
even his coming was delayed. The effort at settle- 
ment in 164:4 failed, as recorded by Winthrop. 
Further effort Avas made, under the auspices of the 
General Court, in 1645, but this failed also. The 
" undertakers " even petitioned the General Court to 
take in the grant, but that body, impressed with the 
importance and value of the location, decreed that 
the plantation should not be destroyed, but rather 
encouraged, that it should reinain in the power of 
the Court to dispose of the planting and ordering of 
it, the ditliculties being attributed to the fact that 
the persons engaged in the business were " so few 
and so unmeet for such a work." 

Thus the enterprise feebly struggled on till 1653. 
Omitting details and names, this is the abstract and 
brief chronicle of that early time. Ten years of 
intermittent struggles had however resulted in the 
establishment of nine families in the town, and the 
liberty of a township was granted, not by formal 
act of incorporation, but liberty of a township 
under certain conditions, to be subsequently 
enlarged to full liberty of a township according 
to law, on fulfilment of the conditions. 

This " liberty " may be found in an early volume 
of the Colonial Kecords. It is curious, as illustrat- 
ing not only the manner of legislation at that time 
but the stress laid on Keligion and Loyalty as the 



88 

conditions of the life of a municipality. The Court, 
among other things, ordered that " a Godly minister 
be maintained among them, that no evil pei'sons, 
enemies to the laws of this CommonweaUh, in 
judgment or practice, be admitted as inhabitants, and 
none to have lots confirmed to them but such as take 
the oaths of fidelity." Even those who claim that this 
exclusion for matter of opinion is inconsistent with 
the ideas of the present day of 2:»ohtical and reli- 
gious toleration will not withhold a meed of res]3ect 
from that legislative body in Massachusetts wdiich 
made thus a due regard for the claims of religious 
faith and political loyalty conditions precedent to a 
mere municipal existence. 

In the first year, 1653, this community, infant- 
like, only crept. IS^ot entitled to the full liberty of a 
township, the inhabitants laid out their lots, and 
made and subscribed their covenant, a code of 
regulations, quaint and primitive, but looking to the 
peace and good order of the community. And now 
the story of their progress is that of the attempt of 
the infant to reach out for itself, to try to walk, to 
make up its own judgments as to what course to 
follow, and then, despairing, turn for solace, support 
and guidance to the maternal arms. For they could 
not use that liberty whereAvith the General Court 
had made them free, and in 1657 petitioned for a 
guardian, frankly admitting that they w ere unable 



39 

to manage their own aftaii's. Their prayer was 
granted. Commissioners were ai)pointed to arrange 
their affairs for them. Under their authorit}^, the 
needful municipal regulations were established, 
grievances remedied, bridges erected, water power 
utilized, a ministry established, the boundaries of 
the towni fixed, restrictions limiting the number of 
inhabitants removed, until in 16(33, confident in 
their strength, self-reliant, and now justified in 
that confidence, they asked again for liberty of 
self-government, and were again invested with full 
township liberties. And now peace prevailed, and 
a well-ordered community labored together for the 
common good. The eai'th yielded a rich harvest to 
the earnest toiler of the valley. Population began 
to increase, and a future of prosperity seemed as 
secure as was the actual achievement of the past. 

And yet a more than Assyrian desolation was at 
hand. 

The recent carefully prepared and instructive 
address delivered within these walls makes it 
unnecessary to do more than allade to the calamity 
which befell this town at the close of its first epoch 
of history. It may be truthfully claimed for our 
ancestors here, that their policy toward the red man 
was not aggressive, nor did they provoke by any 
acts of theirs the storm of war which broke upon 
them two hundred years ago, and overwhelmed 
them in its ruins. 



40 

Yet the flaming torch of Philip spared not in its 
avenging career this peaceful settlement, and the 
ripe fruit of a score of hiborious years was blighted 
in a day. That savage soul made no discrimination 
in its judgment between communities, if only they 
Avere made up of white men. And in a single 
winter morning this town disappeared from the 
face of the earth ; and thus he made a solitude and 
called it ^^eace. Peace retuimed to Massachusetts, 
six months later, when Philip died, but still the 
solitude of this valley was unbroken, — a solitude 
more profound than when King first looked upon 
it from the Wattaquodoc. Three years passed, and 
not an inhabitant returned. At length, in 1680, the 
re-settlement was undertaken — new families came, 
as well as those who had before formed an attach- 
ment here by residence, and the second epoch in 
our local history was begun. 

It was begun in poverty and privation, but 
resolutely, and this time no man looked back. It 
was begun, too, on the eve of Indian warfare, and 
the close of the seventeenth and the first years of 
the eighteenth century are marked by a succession 
of incursions and depredations which paralyzed 
industry and kept even the hope of prosperity in 
long abeyance. The blood of those early martyi's, 
"Whiting and Gardner, ministers of this church, was 
shed for their people. Death and captivity, in 



41 

equal though varying horror, hourly lay in wait, or 
pursued with stealthy step each movement of that 
people beyond the walls of their garrisons. The 
details of their sacrifices are found in Willard. 
Not till the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, did these 
horrors cease. 

With the establishment of peace, population 
and wealth again increased, and with them 
intelligence and influence. In 1721, the people of 
" the poor distressed town of Worcester " asked 
the favor of the representative of this town to use 
his influence in the General Court in their behalf. 
Harvard was born, — then Bolton, then Leominster. 
When the war against Spain was declared, in 1739, 
the men of Lancaster responded with alacrity to 
the appeal, and their whole quota perished before 
Jamaica or on the expedition. The men of Lan- 
caster lay in the trenches before Louisburg, and 
one of her sons commanded a regiment in that 
memorable siege. Throughout the French war, the 
town was constantly furnishing material resources 
and recruits, and it is stated that a large proportion 
of its able-bodied men were in the field. Lake 
George, Ticonderoga and Crown Point bore witness 
to their valor, nor were they wanting in the last 
crowning hour of trial and victory on the Plains of 
Abraham. 

Kote how the successors of those few feeble and 
6 



42 

"unmeet" men of our first epoch had grown, before 
the close of the second, in strengtli and influence. 
Yet a greater trial of their courage and determina- 
tion was at hand. The war of the Kevolution, with 
its mighty possibilities of weal or woe, was before 
them, to close the second epoch. 

1 call your attention to the history of this town 
during the period we have now reached, as disclosed 
by its record, with satisfaction and pride. You 
have listened to the grand enunciation of political 
truths contained in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and your hearts have thrilled anew as you 
heard once more those noble and familiar words. 
But their simple grandeur and impressiveness find 
fit prelude and introduction in the declarations 
of the inhabitants of this town as I find them 
set forth in the original records of its town 
meetings, when the morning of the Revolution was 
dawning. And in these declarations, antedating 
by more than three years the Declaration of 
Independence, you will perceive an aspiration as 
lofty and purposes as determined, proclaimed by 
plain men, probably not one of them Iniown beyond 
the limits of Massachusetts, as were uttered one 
hundred years ago by Jefferson and Adams. 

These brave words of theirs had in them, I think, 
the significance of an ultimate determination to be 
independent of a government in which they had no 



43 

representation. Few in America had at this early 
day contemplated a separation from the mother 
country. Even after hostilities had actually begun, 
the Continental Congress declared, " We have not 
raised armies with the ambitious design of 
separating from Great Britain and establishing 
indej^endent States." They evince, at all events, 
a resolute purpose to obtain a redress of grievances 
under the existing government. The relation of 
the towns of Massachusetts to the early stages of 
the formation of the sentiment for independence 
was most intimate. I do not claim that our own 
town was exceptional to others, nor was her 
determination announced in more absolute terms. 
Her declarations serve to illustrate the general 
subject, and so set forth her own position at the 
time, and that of similar communities throughout 
the State. How the towns were brought into 
correspondence upon this subject must be briefly 
stated, as necessary to an understanding of the 
votes and resolutions of Lancaster. 

The head and front of the whole movement was 
Samuel Adams, years before the sentiment of the 
Congress just quoted was announced. Against 
the opposition of all his colleagues, he proposed 
and carried through his plan of Committees of 
Correspondence, to be appointed by meetings in the 
towns. Of Adams, Governor Hutchinson wrote 



44 

that he was " the first person that openly and in 
any pubUc assembly declared for a total independ- 
ence." Hutchinson denied the right of the towns 
to discuss in their meetings public questions of 
general interest. The town of Boston, inspired 
by Adams, maintained that right, and in town 
meeting, in November, 1772, voted : — 

"That a Committee of Correspondence be appointed, to consist 
of twenty-one persons, to state the rights of the colonists and of 
this province in particular, as men, as Christians, and as subjects, 
to communicate and publish the same to the several tovrns in this 
province and to the world as the sense of this town, with the 
infringements and violations thei'eof that have been or from time 
to time may be made." 

The Committee reported to town meeting, setting 
forth their rights and grievances. These last form 
part of the history of those towns, and are familiar 
to all students of that history. The Boston town 
meeting voted to make an appeal, by means of 
Committees of Correspondence, to all the towns in 
the colony, " that the collected wisdom and fortitude 
of the whole people might dictate measures for the 
rescue of their happy and glorious constitution." 

The responses of the towns were unreserved and 
emphatic. The spirit of resistance was awakened 
throughout the land. Many of these responses are 
preserved in the records of the Boston Committee, 
and sound the clearest notes of American Liberty. 
It would be interesting to quote them here, for the 



45 

action of our toT\ais, acting in their distinctly 
municipal character, in contributing to the forma- 
tion of a revolutionary sentiment throughout the 
land has not been so widely understood as it ought, 
nor so fully appreciated. But the action and resolves 
of Lancaster are typical of them all. 

Judge of the spirit which prevailed here, by this 
warrant for tow^n meeting, for the first Wednesday 
of January, 1773: — 

"Worcester, ss. To the freeholders and other inhabitants of 
the town of Lancaster legally qualified to vote in town affairs, 
Greeting : 

In his Majesty's name, yon are hereby required to meet at the 
meeting house in the second precinct in Lancaster, on the first 
Wednesday of January next, at ten of the clock in the forenoon, 
then and there to act on the following articles, viz : 

1. To choose a moderator for the government of said meeting. 

2'''^. To take into consideration the Dangerous condition of 
our Public Affairs, in particular the Independancy of our Superior 
Judges, and to take such measures as shall be thought proper. 

3'"^. To choose a Committee to draw up our grievances and 
Infringements upon our Liberties, and to lay them before the 
town, when the town shall so order. 

4thiy ^Q consider and act upon the request from Boston 
Committee. 

gthiy^ 'Yq gjyg QiiY Representative such Instructions as the 
Town shall think proper. Relative to our Privileges. 

gthiy_ To choose a Committee to return an answer to Boston 
Committee and to correspond with any other Committee Relating 
to our Privilege and to inform the town on their Transactions 
from time to time. 

Ythiy rp^ ^^^ j^j^^ Jq anything that the tow^n shall see proper 

to withstand the Present Progress of our Enemies in Indeav- 
oring to take away our Priviledges. 



46 

Dated at Lancaster, Dec. 22, 1722, and in the thirteenth year 
of his Majesty's reign." 

At the meeting: — 

" On the third article, voted to choose a Conmiittee to Draw np 
our Grievances and the Infringements upon our Liberties and to 
lay them before the Town when the Town shall so ordei\ 

Voted, to choose seven men for the Committee. 

Voted, to choose \Vm. Dunsnioor, Messrs. John Prescott, Aaron 
Sawyer, Jonah Kendall, Joseph White, Nathaniel Wynian, Eben- 
ezer Allen. 

Voted, to a<ljourn this meeting to Tuesday, the nineteenth of 
this instant January, to the meeting house in the first precinct of 
Lancaster, at ten o'clock, to receive the report of the Committee. 

On the adjournment from the first Wednesday of January to 
Tuesday, the nineteenth of the same, then voted to Receive the 
above said committee's report. 

On the sixth article, voted, that the above Committee be the 
Committee to make a return to Boston Committee of the pro- 
ceedings of the town of Lancaster. 

On the fifth article, voted to give our Representative Instruc- 
tions as FoUoweth : 

As you are chosen to represent this town in the general assem- 
bly of this Province, we take this oppoi'tunity of informing you 
of our sentiments relative to the unhappy state of our Publick 
Affairs. You will Perceive by the Resolves which are herewith 
sent to you, the light in which we view the encroachments made 
upon our Constitutional Freedom. Pailicularly you will observe 
our serious opinion of a Dependancy of the Judges of the Supe- 
rior Court on the Crown for their support, that they are already 
so dependant, or that it is in contemplation to make them so. We 
have great reason to fear also an act passed in the late session of 
the British Parliment, intituled an act for the better preservation 
of his Majesties Dock Yards, etc.. Does in a most essential man- 
ner infringe the rights and Liberties Of the Colonies, as it puts it 
in the power of any wicked tool of administration, either from 
malice or policy to take any Inhabitant from the Colonies and 
caiTy him to Great Britain, there to be tried, which by the 
expense and long detention from his occupation would be the 



47 

destruction of almost any man among us, altho his innocence 
might finally appear in the clearest manner, and further the late 
commissions for taking persons in our sister colony Rhode Island, 
and sending them to Gi"eat Britain, there to be tried upon suspi- 
tion of burning his majesties scooner Gaspie, is an invasion of the 
rights of the Colonies and ought to excite the attention of the 
Avhole contenant. 

We expect that you will use yoiar utmost etforts this session of 
our general assembly, to obtain a Radical Redress oi' our griev- 
ances, and we wish you success in your endeavours, and which we 
cannot but flatter ourselves from the late happy change in the 
American Department you will meet with. We confide in your 
ability and firmness in all matters which may come before the 
General Court, assuring you of the support of this town in all 
your legal proceedings, and earnestly praying that the Great Gov- 
ernor of the world may Direct and bless you in all your ways." 

The Committee at an adjourned meeting, reported 
the following Resolves and Instrnctions : — 

1. Resolved, that this and every other Town in this Province 
have an undoubted right to meet together and consult upon all 
matters interesting to them when and so often as they shall judge 
fit, and it is more especially their duty so to do when infringement 
is made on their Civil or Religious Liberty. 

2'^'^'. Resolved, that the raising a Revenue in the Colonies 
without their consent either by themselves or their representatives, 
is an Infringement of that Right which every freeman has to dis- 
pose of his own Property. 

3'^'>'. Resolved, that the granting a sallary to his excellency the 
Governor of this Province out of the Revenue unconstitutionally 
raised by us is an Innovation of a very alarming Tendancy. 

4tiiiy That it is of the highest importance to the security of 
Liberty, Life and Property that the Publick Administration of 
Justice should be Pure and Impartial, and that the judges should 
be free from every Byass, either in favor of the crown or the 
subject. 

gthiy That the absolute Depeudancy of the Judges of the 
Superior Court of this Province upon the Crown for their support 



48 

would, if it should ever take place, have the strongest tendancy 
to Byass the uiiuds of the Judges, aud would weaken our confi- 
dence in them. 

gthiy^ Ilesolved, that the extension of the power of the court 
of vice admiralty to its present enoimous proportions is a great 
grievance and deprives the subject in many instances of that 
noble privilege of Englishmen, Trials by Juries. 

7''''^. Resolved, that the Proceedings of this Town be trans- 
mitted to the Town of Boston." 

I make no apology for producing at length before 
yon these most mterestmg and oi'iginal contribu- 
tions to our local history. It is remarkable that 
they should never before have seen the light, since 
they illustrate so fully and effectively the tone and 
spirit of our fathers. 

The warrant for town meeting Sept. 5, 1774, 
shows still further the current of thought and 
opinion in the community, soon after the passage of 
the Boston Port Bill. 

The second article is 

"To see if the town will do anything towards the relief of the 
suffering Poor of the town of Boston, occationed by a late act of 
Parliment, for blocking up the Port of said town or to act or 
Transact anything relating thereto. 

S'"^'. To see if the town will come into any agreement for 
non-Importation and non -Exportation of Goods to or from Great 
Britain, or to act or transact anything relating thereto. 

4*^'^ To choose a Committee or Committees to act or do any 
thing or things that the town shall think proper to be done or 
acted, by any agreement with any other town or towns in order 
to get relief in the best and most easy way from our present 
Difficulty, inflicted on us by the late Act of Parliament, and to 
act and do any matter or thing that the town shall see needful to 
be done, and Report to the Town from time to time what they 
have done, and to receive the Town's orders to act and do what 
the Town shall think proper to be done and acted. * * * 



49 

0'^. To pass such votes as the Town shall think Propper to be 
done to get Releaf from those oppressive acts of Parlinient which 
hath been inflicted on us lately, and to act any thing that said 
Town shall think needful Relating to the Congress and to accept 
and Ratify what they shall do if sd town thinks fit. 

10"^. To pass any vote or votes that may be thought needful 
in order to get Releaf in our present Distressed circumstances, by 
our just rights and privileges, as we think, being taken from us. 

11"'. To see if the Town will vote to abide by our Charter 
Rights and Privileges." 

At the meeting it was voted 

" To choose a committee of seven persons to be a committee of 
coi'respondence for sd county." 

And the Committee was chosen accordingly, of 
which Wm. Dunsmoor was the chairman. 

" Voted, that the Committee make report to the Town of their 
doings from time to time, as expressed in the waiTaut. 

Voted, that any number, even less than a majority of the above 
committee, shall be sufiicient to rejn-esent the town as a Com- 
mittee of Correspondence. 

Voted, That the Town will Indemnify the Constable for not 
returning a list of the Freeholders for Juries, under the late act of 
Farliament. 

Voted, to raise fifty pounds, for to buy ammunition with, to 
be a town stock." 

At an adjournment of this meeting it was further 

"2''. Voted, that there be a hundred men raised as volunteers 
to be ready at a minute's warning to Turn out upon any emer- 
gency, and that they be Formed into two companies and choose 
their own officers. 

3'^. Voted, that the said volunteers shall be reasonably paid 
by the Town for any services they may do us in defending our 
Liberty s and Privileges. 

4"^. Voted, that Dr. Wm. Dunsmoor be empowered to enlist 
50 men in the old Parish to serve as volunteers. 
7 



50 

o"'. Voted thai Capt. Asa Whitcomb be empowered to enlist 
5) men in the second parish to serve as volunteers. 

0"'. Voted, to buy one field piece for the use of the town." 

At another adjournment, September 28th, it was 

" Voted to authori/.e two field pieces instead of one, and to 
send one man for the Proposed Provintial Convention to be held 
at Concord on the second Tuesday of October." 
And on December 12, 177i, it was 

"Voted, to choose a committee of 3 persons to draw up an 
Association League and Covenant for non-consumption of goods, 
&c., for the Inhabitants to sign, and Capt. Gates and Capt. 
Whitcomb were chosen." 

At another adjournment, 

" Voted, to buy 5 hundred wt. of ball suitable for the field 
pieces." 

"Voted, to buy 3 hun** wt. of Grape Shot." 

On the 31st October, 1774, this town 

"Voted to choose a Committee to post up all such Persons. as 
continued to buy, sell, or consume any East India Teas at some 
Publick Place in Town, and that Doct. Josiah Wilder, Ephraim 
Sawyer and Aaron Sawyer be a Committee for the above 
Purpose." 

On the 2d January, 1774, it was 

"Voted to choose a committee to receive subscriptions and 
donations for the sufifering Poor of the Town of Boston, occa- 
sioned by the late Boston Port Bill, and to carry in the donations 
to some one of the Committee in a fortnight from this day." 

Also, 

" Voted, to adopt and abide by the spirit and sense of the 
association of the late Continental Congress held at Philadelphia 
to choose a committee to see that the said association be kept and 
observed by the Inhabitants of said Town, 

" Voted, that the above committee have no pay, but do the 
business gratis." 

Other votes were passed from time to time, in 



51 

accord with the spirit of these. Thus I have 
allowed these men to describe themselves to you. 
Ye shall know them by their fruits, for thus they 
resolved, nor did their resolves fail to find embodi- 
ment in action when the time for action came. Their 
wise prescience foresaw the crisis which must be 
approaching, and provided means for meeting it with 
vigor. The morning of the 19th of April, 1775, 
brought its summons, and the company of minute- 
men, of which I have cited the formation, was 
instantly set in motion towards Lexington. The 
compan}^ of horse repaired to Cambridge to assist in 
checking the anticipated advance of the British into 
the country. Thus early in the field in defense of 
that liberty they had resolved must be maintained, 
our fathers did not cease from their patriotic exer- 
tion till liberty was won. Two of them fell at 
Bunker Hill, the first martyrs of the town in the 
cause of independence, and few were the regiments 
of the Continental army from this section of the 
country, in the ranks of which the men of Lancaster 
were not found, or in which they did not exercise 
commands of more or less dignity. Time will not 
allow me to enumerate them. The names of all the 
fathers of the town are found on the rolls, and 
Willard gives a catalogue of not less than ninety- 
two persons in the service who thus represented 
the early settlers. Exclusively of Lexington and 



52 

Bunker Hill, more than three hundred, all, or nearly 
all the able bodied men of the town, were in actual 
service in the field. The town encouraged them by 
generous bounties, as its records show. There was 
a delay in the response to one of the later calls 
which seemed like a momentary faltering. It was 
in 1780. and a leading patriot of the town declared 
that response to the call was impossible, as the 
repeated demands of the country had exhausted the 
power and resources of the town. But the spirit 
of sacrifice shrank not finally before this exigency. 
The men were fui-nished, liberal bounties were 
gi^anted them, and they hastened to the field. 

I do not think it can be claimed that the town fur- 
nished great military leaders, or that any of its citi- 
zens held high commands. Yet the names of Whit- 
comb and Haskell deserve honorable remembrance 
among the brave heroes of that day. Of Whitcomb 
a contemporary relates an anecdote which illustrates 
the true greatness of his character. 

[From the iVeto England Chronicle, Jan. 11, 1776.] 
"Deacon Whitcomb of Lancaster, who was a member of the 
Assembly of Massachusetts Bay till the present war commenced, 
had served in former wars, and been in different engagements ; 
served as a Colonel in the Continental Array, but on account of 
his age was left out upon the new regulation. His men highly 
resented it, and declared tliat they would not list again after their 
time was out. The Colonel told them he did not doubt there 
were sufficient reasons for the regulation, and he was satisfied with 
it ; he never blamed them for their conduct, and said he would 
enlist as a private. Colonel Brewer heard of it, and offered to 



53 

resign in favor of Colonel Whitcomb. The whole coming to Gen- 
eral Washington's ears, he allowed of Colonel Biewer's resigna- 
tion in Colonel Whitcoinb's favor, appointed the former Barrack- 
master till he coi;ld fnrther promote him, and acquainted the army 
with the whole affair in general orders. Let antiquity produce a 
more striking instance of true greatness of soul." 

Henry Haskell served honorably as a Colonel, and 
of Andrew Haskell, a Captain, Willard gives a 
brief and pleasing sketch, showing him to have been 
possessed of a spirit of patriotism which rose 
superior to personal considerations. These were the 
officers of highest rank who served in the war of the 
Revolution from this town ; but there Avere several 
Lieutenants and subalterns, and their record, as well 
as that of the enlisted men, seems to have been one 
of honor. 

Meanwhile the spirit of patriotism was maintained 
at home, and displayed itself occasionally in a strik- 
ing manner. The town records show that black lists 
were prepared of persons who used articles of im- 
portation, and of persons suj^posed to be unfriendly 
to the patriot cause. A committee was appointed 
to collect evidence against "such persons as shall be 
deemed to be internal enemies to the State." These 
names stand upon the records of the town to-day. 
I will not recite them, but it is worthy of note that 
the name of the minister of the town is found there, 
though afterward stricken oif, on his earnest protes- 
tation that his country had no better friend than he. 

I have thus displayed, drawn from original sources, 



54 

though with a brevity adapted to the occasion, the 
record of this toAvn in the war of the Revohition. 
It is one of devotion and sacrifice, early begun and 
continued to the end. The articles of confederation 
and perpetual union between the colonies were 
accepted by the town in 1778, and the Constitution 
of the Commonwealth in 1780. The second epoch 
of our history ended in peace, though in extreme 
poverty and distress, and the third epoch began. 

Almost its first public event illustrates the single 
step from the sublime to the ridiculous. The Gen- 
eral Court granted permission for a lottery, upon the 
petition of the town, to enable it to raise money 
to repair its bridges. And the men who in 1778 
uttered the lofty resolves and instructions to their 
Representative which have been read, in 1783 
accepted the benefit of the provisions of an act 
which not only conferred on them powers of folly, 
but, in the scope of its provisions contemplated pen- 
alties of infamy. On the 15th of February, 1783, 
this act was passed, and was approved by John 
Hancock, then Governor. The 23enal section is as 
follows: — 

" And it is also further enacted if any persons shall forge, coun- 
terfeit or alter a Ticket any and every person so convicted shall be 
set on the gallows fur the space of one hour with a rope ronnd 
his neck, or shall pay a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds to 
the use of the Commonwealth, or shall be imprisoned not exceed- 
ing twelve months, or be publicly whipped not exceeding thirty- 



55 

nine stripes at tlie discretion of the Justices of tlie same Court 
who aie also hereby empowered to intiict one or more of the said 
punishments on such oflenders if they see fit. 

Feb. loth, 1783. 
In the House the bill having had three several readings passed 

to be enacted. 

TinsTEAM Dalton, Speaker. 

In Senate, Feb. 15, 1783. 

This bill having had two several readings passed to be enacted. 

Samuel Adams, Prest. 

Ai>proved. 

JOHN HANCOCK." 

Surely it is an instance of something like relapse 
and temporary degeneracy, that from 1782 to 1790 
fourteen classes of this lottery were drawn, with a 
result upon the whole unfavorable to the cause 
directly in hand, and greatly injurious for the 
time to the general industry and morals of the 
community. 

Doubtless the temptation was great to resort to 
any means which promised favorably for meeting a 
public and exceptional expense. - Doubtless this 
portion of the country was utterly exhausted by 
the war. Moreover, a sound circulating medium, 
that indispensable basis of commercial prosperity, 
was wanting. Yet the lottery consumed instead of 
adding to the general wealth, and provided a 
remedy which aggravated, instead of alleviating, 
the community's disease. 

I have left myself no time to dwell upon the 



5G 

details of the third epoch, and, indeed, my object 
has been, in great measure, to bring before yon the 
rehations of this town to the war of the Revokition. 
This hist epoch also had its alternatmg scenes of 
peace and war, though, till towards its close, the 
presence of the latter was not felt in a degree of 
severity comparable to that of the Revolution. 
The causes which led to the rebellion known as 
Shays' war, in 1786, in which Lancaster played an 
honorable and patriotic part, are set forth simply 
and philosophically in the pages of Rev. Mr. 
Thayer's address. A reasonable number of our 
citizens joined the forces under General Lincoln, and 
remained with him to the end of the controversy. 
In the war of 1812, also, the men of Lancaster 
were found faithfnl in arms, and loyally and 
patiently bore such sacrifices as that war entailed 
upon them. 

It was at the close of this epoch that the 
crowning proof \vas given that the spirit of the 
fathers lived in the sons. ^Nearly two hundred of 
our best and bravest, the flower of our youth, went 
forth from their peaceful homes to defend our 
liberties on the field of battle, and to die if need be, 
that the republic might live. The history of the 
Great Rebellion is yet to be written, and the day 
has not come for it to be written in the full 
impartial light which lapsing time throws on past 



57 

events. It will be a history filled with the story of 
great battles, and long campaigns, and valor 
individual and collective such as few histories 
have disclosed. In that history, we remember Avith 
pride to-day, no word can be written which will 
reflect discredit on any of the sons of Lancaster 
who marched forth to battle beneath our country's 
radiant flag. You were the witnesses of the 
devotion with which they dedicated themselves to 
that great and holy cause. You saw them press 
forward to that mighty conflict, not gaily " as to a 
festival," but earnestly, as to the discharge of the 
noblest duty of the citizen and the soldier. Your 
prayers and benedictions followed them. You were 
witnesses of their departure to the field, and you 
welcomed back the survivors of that gallant band 
with tears of grateful joy. 

But other tears fell for those who went forth, and 
returned not when battles w^ere over and victory 
won. The homes that knew them in their day of 
youth and bloom, know them no more forever. Yet 
if to the spirits of the departed is granted some 
cognizance of what is done in this earthly home of 
their afi'ection from which they have passed to 
higher spheres, the knowledge of our gratitude 
may form a part of their rich and heavenly reward 
to-day. They died for us, and yonder memorial 
speaks to us tenderly of the story of their heroic 
8 



58 

(h't'ds, ami tolls Us hit\\ Ktl'l v a iaHiM«^' il is to {\\o 
thai (Mir li'lloNN -iiU'H \\\:\\ \\\i\ and li\o iiot t>iil\, luit 
lu" iVi't*. Nor was it dralli, luit lilc ainl imiuorialilN 
which waited lor llu-m and rrcriNcd llu'iu, w Iumi 
thoy wiHMiU'd to lis tt> die. I'\>r, in thr |uu't's w«>i'tia, 
so litJY chostMi l\>r iusi'riplion on the lahUi w hii-h 
piiMis i;i"atit iid»> has erertrd to their iinauorv : 

*' Wo novoi' oou l»»» »l«\'iiliU<ss till wt* tlio. 

It is tho (lo!»l win l>attl«>s. No, tho Imhvo 

nio uovor, lioiny; lUuUhlran thoy l>ut ohaugo 

'ri\»ai' oiMinti'v's vows t'ov i\n>i»'. tht'ir ot>in»tiv's hoart," 




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